Introduction to SAT II Physics - FreeExamPapers

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questions. Invariably, some of these answer choices will be tempting for some questions but not for others. For instance, you can be pretty sure that kinetic energy isn’t measured in hertz: E may be a tempting answer choice for other questions but not for that one, so you can eliminate it. Another point that may help you guess in a pinch is that you’ll rarely find that the same answer choice is correct for two different questions. The directions for classification questions explicitly state that an answer choice “may be used once, more than once, or not at all,” but on the whole, the ETS people shy away from the “more than once” possibility. This is by no means a sure bet, but if you’re trying to eliminate answers, you might want to eliminate those choices that you’ve already used on other questions in the same set. If you’re wondering, the answers to the above questions are 1 A, 2 E, and 3 D. “EXCEPT” Questions All of the following are true about an -particle EXCEPT (A) It has an atomic mass of 4 (B) It carries a positive charge (C) It is identical to the nucleus of a helium atom (D) It will always pass right through a thin sheet of gold foil (E) It contains two neutrons Questions of the “EXCEPT” variety contain a bunch of right answers and one wrong answer, and it’s generally possible to spot one or two right answers. Even if you can’t answer the question confidently, you might remember that alpha particles have a positive charge and that they are identical to the nucleus of a helium atom. Already, you’ve eliminated two possible answers, and can make a pretty good guess from there. If you’re interested, the answer is D: Rutherford’s gold foil experiment showed that alpha particles would occasionally deflect off the gold foil at extreme angles, thus proving that atoms have nuclei. “I, II, and III” Questions For which of the following is f > 0: I. Concave mirror II. Convex mirror III. Converging lens (A) I only (B) II only (C) I and III only (D) II and III only (E) I, II, and III In this style of multiple-choice question, the “I, II, and III” questions provide you with three possible answers, and the five answer choices list different combinations of those three. There’s an upside and a downside to questions like these. Suppose you know that a concave mirror has f > 0 and a convex mirror doesn’t, but you’re not sure about a converging lens. The downside is that you can’t get the right answer for sure. The upside is that you can eliminate B, D, and E, and have a 50% chance of guessing the right answer. As long as you’re not afraid to guess—and you should never be afraid to guess if you’ve eliminated an answer—these questions shouldn’t be daunting. The value of f for a converging lens is positive, so the answer is C. 18
Physics Hint 6: Be Flexible Knowing your physics formulas is a must, but they’re useless if you don’t know how to apply them. You will probably never be asked to calculate the force acting on an object given its mass and acceleration. Far more likely, you will be asked for the acceleration given its mass and the force acting on it. Knowing that F = ma is useless unless you can also sort out that a = F⁄ m. The ETS people don’t want to test your ability to memorize formulas; they want to test your understanding of formulas and your ability to use formulas. To this end, they will word questions in unfamiliar ways and expect you to manipulate familiar equations in order to get the right answer. Let’s look at an example. A satellite orbits the Earth at a speed of 1000 m⁄s. Given that the mass of the Earth is kg and the universal gravitational constant is for the radius of the satellite’s orbit? (A) m (B) m (C) m (D) m (E) m N Â· m 2 ⁄ kg 2 , what is the best approximation What’s the universal gravitational constant? Some people will know that this is the G in the equation for Newton’s Law of Gravitation: . Other people won’t know that G is called the “universal gravitational constant,” and ETS will have successfully separated the wheat from the chaff. It’s not good enough to know some formulas: you have to know what they mean as well. Given that we know what the universal gravitational constant is, how do we solve this problem? Well, we know the satellite is moving in a circular orbit, and we know that the force holding it in this circular orbit is the force of gravity. If we not only know our formulas, but also understand them, we will know that the gravitational force must be equal to the formula for centripetal force, . If we know to equate these two formulas, it’s a simple matter of plugging in numbers and solving for r. Knowing formulas, however, is a small part of getting the right answer. More important, you need to know how to put these two equations together and solve for r. On their own, without understanding how to use them, the equations are useless. But there are two slightly underhanded ways of getting close to an answer without knowing any physics equations. These aren’t foolproof methods, but they might help in a pinch. Slightly Underhanded Way #1: Elimination through Logic By scanning the possible answer choices, you can see that the answer will begin either with a 4 or a 2.5. There are three options beginning with 4 and only two beginning with 2.5. Odds are, the correct answer begins with 4. The test makers want to give you answer choices that are close to the correct answer so that, even if you’re on the right track, you might still get caught in a 19
Page 1 and 2: SATII PHYSICS (FROM SPARKNOTES.COM)
Page 3 and 4: The Good • Because SAT II Subject
Page 5 and 6: Which SAT II Subject Tests to Take
Page 7 and 8: After grumbling, however, you still
Page 9 and 10: Waves 15-19% 11-15 Waves 10% 7-8 Op
Page 11 and 12: negative, so E, and not A, is the c
Page 13 and 14: including them anyway because it’
Page 15 and 16: Two positively charged particles, o
Page 17: will a visual representation reliev
Page 21 and 22: There are a number of ways to label
Page 23 and 24: Adding Parallel Vectors If the vect
Page 25 and 26: The result of multiplying A by c is
Page 27 and 28: neither parallel nor perpendicular.
Page 29 and 30: Suppose the hands on a clock are ve
Page 31 and 32: Vector Addition Practice Questions
Page 33 and 34: 2. A The vector 2A has a magnitude
Page 35 and 36: path, Alan has traveled a much grea
Page 37 and 38: school student called Andrea. Andre
Page 39 and 40: centimeters to the left of its star
Page 41 and 42: We can learn two things about the a
Page 43 and 44: Acceleration vs. Time Graphs After
Page 45 and 46: The variable represents the object
Page 47 and 48: Note that there are certain conveni
Page 49 and 50: 1. . An athlete runs four laps of a
Page 51 and 52: 10. . A woman runs 40 m to the nort
Page 53 and 54: We know the total distance the spri
Page 55 and 56: Principles of Natural Philosophy. I
Page 57 and 58: The component form of Newton’s Se
Page 59 and 60: e in the direction. And since the s
Page 61 and 62: which reflects its resistance to be
Page 63 and 64: In the diagram above, the weight an
Page 65 and 66: A student pushes a box that weighs
Page 67 and 68: 1. . Each of the figures below show
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7. . In the figure above, a person
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Since the block is motionless, the
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When we are told that a person push
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EXAMPLE A water balloon of mass m i
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The graph above plots the force exe
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Though energy is always measured in
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there is a negative amount of work
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smallest. The answer to question 3
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Mechanical Energy Average Power Ins
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to a height of 8 m over a time of 4
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8. C When the book reaches the pers
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determining what those right number
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the ground. The system is initially
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calculators, you almost certainly w
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and minimize M.” With such a ques
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2. WHAT IS THE ACCELERATION OF THE
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Adding these two equations together
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force of friction: . Using Newton
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m, placed on a frictionless surface
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Frequency is given in units of cycl
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of the spring due to the gravitatio
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The oscillation of a pendulum is mu
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Velocity Calculating the velocity o
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Practice Questions 1. . Two masses,
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7. . An object of mass 3 kg is atta
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Since the system is in equilibrium,
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velocity, v. Linear momentum is den
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Conservation of Momentum If we comb
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As we might expect, the final veloc
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A pool player hits the eight ball,
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two-dimensional collision is effect
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For a System of Two Particles For a
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At the front end of the boat, the f
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4. . A scattering experiment is don
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1. B The athlete imparts a certain
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7. E Momentum is conserved in this
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The diver’s translational motion
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30 π/6 45 π/4 60 π/3 90 π/2 180
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elative position to one another. As
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acceleration given its angular velo
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To find the direction of a rigid bo
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A student exerts a force of 50 N on
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The torque that produces the angula
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The masses in the figure above are
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an object sliding down a frictionle
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Velocity Average Angular Accelerati
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3. . What is the direction of the a
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1. D An object that experiences 120
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At the top of the incline, the disk
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from a Latin word meaning “center
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Newton’s Law of Universal Gravita
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when you are beneath the surface of
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EXAMPLE A satellite of mass is laun
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Kepler’s Laws After poring over t
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Practice Questions Questions 1-3 re
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8. . A satellite orbits the Earth a
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Circumference and radius are relate
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learn how heat is transferred from
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heat, like rubber, have a high spec
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Just as specific heat tells us how
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Conduction is the transfer of heat
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Effectively, this equation tells us
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the way that it does. The Laws of T
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There are a number of equivalent fo
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If we know our formulas, this probl
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5. . An ideal gas is enclosed in a
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Asphalt, like most materials, has a
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The things we call atoms today are
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If they come up on SAT II Physics,
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will move in the opposite direction
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Work The work done to move a charge
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Much like gravitational potential e
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3. . A particle of charge +2q exert
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7. . A particle of charge +q is a d
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The vector sum of the three vectors
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Voltage The batteries we use in fla
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This equation tells us that we can
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If the two variables you know are a
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However, each resistor causes a vol
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So = 4 . WHAT IS THE CURRENT RUNNIN
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Consider again the circuit whose to
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This circuit consists of resistors
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The junction rule deals with “jun
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across the loop. We can express the
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capacitance is halved. The proporti
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The Greek letter is called the diel
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4. . Two resistors, and , are ident
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10. . A dielectric is inserted into
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The equivalent capacitance of two c
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The Earth itself acts like a huge b
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Because the velocity vector and the
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A particle with a positive charge o
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The constant is called the permeabi
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1. . The pointer on a compass is th
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7. . A positively charged particle
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1. B To solve this problem, it is h
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If the particle is to move at a con
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flowing in the counterclockwise dir
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Next, let’s calculate the flux th
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Remember that field lines come out
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Magnetic Flux Faraday’s Law / Len
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5. . A wire carrying 5.0 V is appli
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In this equation, A is the amplitud
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Ernst attaches a stretched string t
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A string is tied to a pole at one e
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other. The principle of superpositi
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Nodes The crests and troughs of a s
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The Doppler Effect So far we have o
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Practice Questions 1. . Which of th
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6. . Two pulses travel along a stri
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1. B Simple harmonic motion is defi
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where and are the frequency heard b
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A higher frequency—and thus a sho
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The phenomenon of refraction result
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Since we know that the ratio of / i
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The four basic kinds of optical ins
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You can test all this yourself with
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Because is a positive number, we kn
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As the diagram shows us, and as the
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At any point P on the back screen,
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Note that the pattern is brightest
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One of the more common ways of test
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3. . When the orange light passes f
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9. . Sound waves do not exhibit pol
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7. E Only concave mirrors and conve
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For people who believed that light
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What does this all mean? Time is re
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A spaceship flying toward the Earth
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Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment
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The Wave Theory of Electromagnetic
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The Problem with Rutherford’s Mod
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Don’t worry: you don’t need to
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A hydrogen atom is energized so tha
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where is the uncertainty in a parti
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electrons have mass, it is so negli
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chapters on mechanics are the resul
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You won’t need to calculate the n
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Photoelectro n Radius of Electron O
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5. . An electron is accelerated thr
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according to the formula , where l
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In radioactive substances, the numb
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A scale for measuring temperature,
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The points of maximum displacement
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Electromagnetic spectrum The spectr
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The amount of time it takes for one
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Given the period, T, and semimajor
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The substance that is displaced as
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A back-and-forth movement about an
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Refracted ray Refraction Restoring
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T Tail Tangent A body or set of bod
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Weber Weight The force involved in
Page 371 and 372:
pinpointing what you need to study
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If you got a question wrong because
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